


Fool’s Silver

by thebifrostgiant



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst, Consent Issues, Dubious Consent, Enemies to Lovers, Fuck Or Die, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, No noncon, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Torture, Self-Hatred, Werewolf Tony Stark, Werewolves, but I’m marking for safety, for now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2020-10-21 08:02:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebifrostgiant/pseuds/thebifrostgiant
Summary: When Loki, stripped of his powers and mortal as any Midgardian, finds himself trapped in a cave after being drugged and bound, it is no comfort to find he is not alone, not when the eyes staring back at him belong to Tony Stark





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is for all you werewolf lovers on the FI discord. You know who you are. And a big thank you to **Rabentochter** for all the encouragement <3
> 
> This chapter is mostly just angst. No warnings yet, besides blood and misery

The dirt, truly, is something awful. 

Loki had realized as much nine days prior, when a heavy hand to the shoulder had thrust him forward roughly, hard enough to make his knees lock and then buckle, and he, falling face first, had promptly swallowed a mouthful of it. 

_He spluttered and gagged, sprawled humiliatingly, lungs and mouth filled with foul-tasting dirt. The puffs of air from his coughs only sent up more bits of earth and rock, and he laid there, graceless and undignified, for long, horrible moments, unable to breathe, the terrible sensation of choking washing over him with the taste of mud in his mouth. _

_It took several terrifying minutes of him gagging and retching, sure he was going to die and thinking it almost laughably pathetic, for him to regain some semblance of normal breathing — more of a ragged wheeze, really. _

_When he was finally able to inhale without his lungs spasming, his head fell forward, and the sharp pebbles on the cold ground pressed into his cheek. He sneered, disgraced and defiant, but no laughter rang out behind him. It seemed, in fact, that he was very much alone. The only sound he could make out was the rasp of his own unsteady breathing. _

_It took even longer for him to twist around enough to lever himself upward with his wrists._ _It was excruciating. Rough, scratchy rope — cruelly tight all up his forearms, binding his arms behind his back — cut into him, abrading his skin and leaving fibrous bits in the wounds. His already sore shoulders screamed agony, and he felt a horrible pull in his left and thought he'd wrenched the muscle. He shuffled backwards, shifting his weight between his heels and his fists, spitting out grainy globs of sand and panting, until his shoulders collided with a wall of stone with a dull thud. He lost his balance, tried to catch himself with his bad arm, barely managed to stop a wresting cry of pain, and sliced his hand open on a particularly sharp piece of rubble. _

_He stopped breathing, watery-eyed and desperately casting about for the piece that bit him, fumbling it with blood-slicked hands. It slipped from his grasp once, twice, each time more frantic than the last, until finally, his fingers closed around a fragment, too smooth to be rock, too light to be metal. Bone, Loki thought. It was a bit of bone._

_He slowly, shakily, and very, very painfully, slid the sharpest edge of the bone back and forth against the rope, nicking his fingers quite badly in the process. _

_When the last threads of the rope were finally severed, his arms swung free, and fiery pain that he was unprepared for exploded through his whole upper body. _

_After several tense moments, teeth clenched so hard together he tasted blood in his mouth, Loki attempted movement, only to realize that he had no control over his left arm at all. He looked down at his wrist, blood from his hand and the ripped, freshly bleeding skin on his arms seeping into the sleeve of his shirt, all the way up to his elbow. _

_With morbid fascination, he slid the sleeve up his arm, smearing blood across his skin, staining the flesh with bright, horrible red. He'd then felt a nearly irrepressible and wholly inappropriate urge to laugh, but doing so sent him into another coughing fit and made his chest ache and his throat burn. _

_His shoulder hurt savagely, and he supposed it was not wrenched, but dislocated. Gripping the elbow firmly in the messed up fingers of his right hand, he took a moment to breathe, and another to work up his nerve, and, without giving himself a chance to hesitate, he yanked his arm sharply in a swift upward movement. And he screamed. _

Now, however, it seems his whole world consists of the dirt in the cave, for it is a cave he is in. Not like Asgard’s prison, or one of SHIELD’s cells, or even a dungeon in some back corner somewhere. It’s primitive, dank and fetid, and dark.

Loki doesn’t even know for certain where he is, what realm he’s on. He’s ruled out Jotunheim — and no small mercy that is — and he knows in his heart that he is a long way from his home, from Asgard. He isn’t sure how he can tell, with no way to gauge distance, but he _feels_ it nonetheless, as sharp and strong as a physical hurt. He is lost. Abandoned. Wretched. Far from Thor, far from Odin, far from anyone who still lived and may have once cared for him.

He’d been drugged, caught unawares — and _curse_ this mortal body for that — and he could only hope, despite the bitter mockery of such a word, that what he had seen and felt had been in part because of it, some hallucinogen playing tricks on his mind, and nothing more, nothing _real_. Then they had tied his wrists up tight, blindfolded him, gagged him, and the taste of his own panic had been overwhelming in his lungs, until they’d ripped the fabric from his mouth, his eyes, and shoved him, pathetic and dazed, into a fucking cave.

The truly worrying part, however, is the fact that he doesn't know why he is being held prisoner, doesn’t even know whose prisoner he is. Not Thanos. No, this is too crude for him, too _safe_, too _easy_. Loki spits, and he wants to choke on those words, because it is none of those things. But however much it may look like the planet, may remind him of the Other and haunt him with the cruelty and bile of those memories, it is different enough that he knows he is not back there, not about to relive what had become ultimately the worst of his many nightmares. No, he may not be in Thanos’ hands once more, and though that too is a mercy, it is no comfort. The Midgardians have the right of it. _The devil you know... _He knew Thanos. Expectation, foreknowledge, knowing his enemy, his captor, did not make the pain any easier, the dread, but the lack thereof winds a knot of fear so tightly in his chest that when he laughs, he swears he can taste blood.

He’d been SHIELD’s prisoner, the Avengers’, his father’s. None, still, would do _this_. But he does not know who would hate him enough to leave him here, all but alone and powerless, waiting, tense and mad, for some uncertain end that he can’t even have the grace to be brave for. Oh, but he knows it was no accident, no incidental mishap that had caused him to be in the thick of it, not mere happenstance. For they do hate him. That much, if nothing else, is certain.

The chalky, bitter taste of earth clings to his tongue, and the rest of him is covered to near entirety. Dirt stains thick half circles of brown under his fingernails and has worked its way deep into his hair, down to the greasy roots, itchy and filthy. His clothes are a hopeless dusty grey, and he's developed a near permanent wheeze from inhaling the finer bits of clay and dust. There’s dirt in the creases of his palms, in the tender, scabbed over areas of his numerous hurts, clogging his nose, eyes, throat. 

He'd forgone his boots after the second day's pacing had caused trapped grit to rub stinging blisters on both ankles. The feel of the dirt on his bare feet, sliding between his toes, chafing callouses into his heels, and caking under his toenails is unpleasant, but bearable. 

Once or twice a day, one of the faceless, unnamed guards tosses a scrap of something for him to eat. It always lands in the dirt. They never come in the cave. They haven’t even retied the ropes he'd shed days ago. They just seem to want him alive, at least decently so, and Loki cannot for the life of him figure out what they are getting at, and not from lack of trying. 

Sometimes he'll only get an apple, half-rotten and wormy, for the day. Other times it’s bread that has been stale a week, or dubious meat that is still raw. It doesn't matter what it is. Everything he eats has the same horrible grittiness to it. There is no sense wasting it either. His body is weak enough as it is. He sneers at the thought. Better to force down something that might preserve even the smallest of his strength then to just give up and starve. He hasn’t sunk that low yet, though it gives him no satisfaction, no scrap of pleasure that he hasn’t broken his record. His refusal would not persuade his guards to serve him a meal worthy of Asgard’s feasts.

They give him water every day too. Barely a bowl full, and a bit muddy. Hardly enough to drink, and certainly not enough to douse the constant engrossing thirst that rakes his throat like nettles, dry as Muspelheim in midsummer. Bathing had stopped being an option nearly a fortnight prior. He wonders from where they draw the water. He cannot hear a stream nearby, can’t hear much besides his bounding heartbeat and the bloodrush in his ears, his staggered breathing, painful and loud.

Worse than the dirt, however, are the bones. All sorts of them, from all kinds of animals, some old enough to crumble, some so fresh they still carry the stink of carrion. There’s a skull in one corner, cracked and jawless, which seems to stare at Loki with its sightless, hollow eyes, and he is almost certain it is not the skull of a creature, but of a man.

There is water in the cave, too, in the corner farthest from where Loki has lodged himself, the little nook he’d ended up in that first day, when he’d fixed his shoulder — not well, apparently, as it still aches when he moves it, when it gets cold. And the nights do tend to get cold — reddish brown smudges on the wall of his own blood, dried and stale, like a marking, like it is his _territory_. Not that there is much competition for it. No, Loki has been alone, pitifully, brutally alone, since he has been here, with nothing but his own thoughts for company, and _that_ is a familiar agony. Maybe he should have appreciated it when it was Odin who had confined him, when he still had Frigga to love him enough for such meager blessings as soup, a book here or there, an imitation of her face and voice. At least his cell had been cozy then, plenty of walking room and even furniture. No dirt. That was perhaps the thing he should have been most grateful for. But when does Loki ever learn?

Loki can't tell how deep it is, but it is stagnant, murky, and smells like shit. Whatever it was that had lived here, whatever left the bones, it was not long gone. It’s not a relieving thought. He hopes it does not decide to come back, that this is not its home. He eyes the skull again, the sickening fractures. He can almost hear the crunch of it breaking beneath teeth meant to kill. He pities the man, long dead though he may be, even as a shiver chases its way up his spine. As for Loki himself, there are other ways he’d prefer to die. 

There’s a fissure at the roof of the cave that lets in the tiniest bit of light. Enough that Loki can see the other side of the cave, can see his hands and the damned bones, but not enough to lift the filmy haze of darkness, not enough to truly _see_, not with mortal eyes. Loki thinks it might also let in a bit of heat during the day, when the sun is bright, a touch of warmth that hangs heavy in the air and on his skin. When the clouds are thick, however, it is dark, indistinguishable from true night but for the temperature, the length such darkness lasts. 

And the nights. The nights are long. Cold. The hard and coarse earth is far from comfortable, and sucks the heat out of Loki, replaced by a chill that sinks down deep. He doesn’t sleep much. Worse than the dirt, the cold, the bones, are the dreams. 

Surprisingly, he doesn't dream of Thanos or the Other, nor even of being forsaken by the All-Father, or Thor’s face, blurry, like he cannot remember the details, like he has forgotten. 

No, he dreams of flashing fangs and hot, gushing blood, of pain, horrible, ripping pain, flesh rent from bone and _devoured_, his still-living body torn apart as he watches. When he wakes, it’s to a throbbing in his chest and lungs worn raw, breath an awful gurgle in his throat, dizzy with horror that does not abate, long minutes spent hunched in darkness, grimy and miserable, until the gleam of moonlight on bone reminds him of where this new fear had begun. 

What sort of beast, what sort of _monster_ ate people? Was the man an unfortunate victim, prey of a creature indiscriminate in its hunger? Or was he one of many, dragged back, struggling but alive, to this hole in the earth, this graveyard under the ground, hidden from sky and light and life, to meet his end in the belly of some large and lurking animal? He could not say, and the bones did not give any answer. 

Nine days. Nine cycles of the sun and the dark, the wavering light and his waning hope. How much longer? And until what? Is the waiting the boon, the end a much more horrible punishment than he yet knows? Or is it the not knowing that he most fears? The uncertainty, his own mind’s imaginings torturing him for his captors, who never even have to lift a finger, so good is Loki at his task. 

He chews at the remnants of a thumbnail, more of a bloody sore than anything, but pain is easier to bear than his own cowardice. Weakness. Not even two weeks of this and he is already broken, a trembling mess hiding in a corner like a small, toothless animal, an easy target paralyzed with resignation. Contemptible. Honorless. But a shard of bone and some tattered scraps of rope are not enough to save him, not even worth the fight. There’s no glory to be had, no death worthy of a warrior, just the slow decline of thirst and starvation, the cold taste of fear and the creeping claws of madness. And, worst of all, it is _fitting_. 

The day has shifted to what Loki assumes is early evening, the shadows deepening, and he knows they aren’t moving, not in any reality outside of his addled brain, but his eyes would swear it all the same that they edge nearer, encroaching, just like he would swear that he doesn’t press himself closer to the cave wall, the cold, blood-stained rock a twisted form of comfort as well as a cage. 

At first, he’s sure he’s imagining it — just one more testament to his lunacy — the shuffle of feet on earth, the crunch of rocks beneath heels, coming closer, too heavy to be one of the guards. But the uneven, faltering rhythm works its way into his ears, a tangible sound, and the entailment of that thuds in his chest like the rapid beat of his heart. 

And now that he’s paying attention, he hears at least one other set of footsteps, faster than the first, the light-footed confidence of the guards as they escort another. Company, or perhaps his executioner, though the new _guest_ is either reluctant or injured, or maybe drugged as Loki had been. But they’re the footsteps of a man, and not a beast. 

Wary eyes find the entrance of the cave — not the exit, not when Loki could not escape from it, could not muster up the strength to die fighting for his freedom — waiting, watchful, helpless. 

The man isn’t shoved nearly so hard as Loki was, though he does stumble forward, righting himself and using his unbound arms for balance, like a fledgling bird threshing its wings. He does not look particularly menacing, nothing like the gulping, swallowing, consuming monsters of Loki’s reveries, hardly tall enough to come up to Loki’s chest were he upright and proud, no weapons visible in his hands or on his clothes, torn just like Loki’s. 

It takes him a long while, the moment lingering shamefully, for him to recognize the man before him, and the veil of darkness is no aid. But when those eyes catch the half-light of the setting sun through the crack in the roof, meeting Loki’s like a jolt of thunder, the thrill of certainty alights in his mind, freezing the air in his lungs. Tony Stark. The Man of Iron. Halting where he stands, mouth gaped open, the horror in his face piercing sharp as a dagger, and it is no mystery whether he has seen Loki as well, whether he knows what kind of monster _he_ now faces. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, finally, another chapter. Thanks for bearing with me during the long wait. The good news is, the chapter after this (which was originally going to be all one chapter, but it became a monster and I had to split it) is almost done as well! 
> 
> Thanks to everyone for all the love and feedback, and thanks again to **Rabentochter** for being a real one ❤️
> 
> Warnings include misery, sass, and quite a lot of fear

**_“_**What the fuck? What the- fucking _hell_, what are you doing here?” Stark’s hands clench at his sides, and then cover his face. “God, _no,_” he whispers. “You can’t be here. Why the hell do you have to be here?”

He rakes his hands through his hair, obviously distressed, and he’s not even looking at Loki. Aside from his initial, fear-filled glance, he hasn’t looked at Loki at all. He’s, he’s trembling, panic-stricken because of _something_, but he paces the dirt, back and forth, wearing a path into the cave floor, and his back is to Loki. 

That strikes a note of fear into Loki, because this he does not understand. What, if not Loki, does the man have to fear? What scares him worse than a mad god — although, not really a god, not anymore — covered in blood and filth, baring his teeth like a frenetic dog, ready to bite?

“How the fuck did you even get here?” Stark laughs, the question rising in pitch towards the end. 

“Same as you, I’d imagine,” Loki says, voice as coarse as the ground, low and thick from disuse. 

Stark actually startles at that, blinking at Loki — and he is looking at him _now_ — drawn up from his horror by the sardonic words he clearly was not expecting. 

Stark stares at him a moment, hands dropping unconsciously to his sides, and he tilts his head, eyes narrowed. Suddenly, his focus is all on Loki, all that worked-up energy directed right at the former god. Loki tries not to shrink from it. 

“What happened to you?”

As if it isn’t obvious. Loki lifts his chin, returning the stare as best he can. He always _was_ good at pretending. 

“If you stay here long enough, I imagine you’ll find out.”

“Right. Not a friendly place, I got that. But what- aren’t you supposed to be on Asgard? In... a different kind of jail? How did you get _here_? You- you can’t _be here,_” he says again, mystifyingly. 

Loki rolls his head back against the cave wall, smiling bitterly. 

“I don’t even know where here is, Stark,” he admits. 

He’s not sure why he does it. Giving someone who — while he didn’t seem inclined to attack at present — had been his enemy a display of his own weakness was just poor planning. But he is tired, and it feels good, the words like venom through his teeth. “Are we still on Midgard? Your Earth? I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t awake for much of the trip”

Stark gives a jerky nod, but he is frowning, considering something else. His eyes drift from Loki’s face to his arms, to the scabbed up, mangled wounds, the way he cradles the elbow of his sore arm in his other hand, his bare feet. 

“No offense, but you didn’t look this banged up after Hulk used you as a chew toy. What the hell can do that kind of damage to a god?”

Loki grits his teeth and wills down the urge to snarl, scathing words hot on his tongue. Instead, he shrugs — with his good arm — and pretends it doesn’t hurt when he says, “Oh, you haven’t heard? Did Thor not tell you? I’m not much of a god these days anymore. I dare say that’s another thing we have in common.”

“Then how did- oh never _mind_, that’s not important. Loki, you need to get out of here. Now. The sun is already going down, and I don’t want-“ He looks around frantically. “Is there even a way out of here? There’s got to be. There needs to be. You need to leave.” 

“If there was a way out, I would not be sitting here, like this, at the current moment,” Loki says, and Stark looks like he wants to hit something. 

“Have you even tried?” 

And that rankles, far more than it should, because he hadn’t. 

“Why yes, I did want to be killed on the spot, or drugged and beaten far worse than-“ 

“They _drugged_ you?” Stark actually sounds appalled, and whether it’s at the notion, or at the way Loki cannot hide how rattled he feels just from the memory, he cannot say. 

“Indeed.”

Stark is silent a long while, but not a stilted, unnatural silence, but one where Loki can practically feel the way his mind is working. He looks around the cave, for something Loki cannot be sure of, but he stalks forward when he finds it, reaching down to pick up a stone no larger than his palm, the largest bit of rubble in the cave. He, like Loki, avoids the bones. 

Stark adjusts his grip on the rock, shifting his fingers again and again over it. He turns toward the entrance of the cave, holding it up, like he is preparing to strike. 

“Are you going to try asking nicely while you’re at it? The pebble won’t do a thing.” 

Stark ignores him, walks toward the mouth of the cave, and freezes. His arm slowly descends, his hold on the rock slackens. 

“They’ve blocked it,” he says quietly, almost calmly. 

Then he whirls around and throws the rock against the wall of the cave, hard. It collides with a loud _clack_, and breaks into pieces. They both stare at the remains for several heartbeats. The only sound is the pant of Stark’s breath, growing less steady and more reverberant with each second. 

“Who the hell did you piss off this time?” 

Remarkably, it doesn’t even sound like an accusation. Oh, Stark still is not looking at him, still has his stiffened back toward him like it’s all Loki is worthy of, but there is no blame. Only a curiosity at once wild and sedate, like subtle ripples of water that belie the current beneath. 

“Would you believe me if I said I would also like the answer to that question?”

Oh, and Stark does turn to him then. And, ah, there is the blame. 

“You’re really not very helpful, are you?”

He takes a frustrated step toward Loki, and then another.

“What do you want me to say, Stark?” Loki returns. “Should I amend my answer now that I seem to have, ah, pissed _you_ off? Or do you just enjoy having an easy target? Would it surprise you to know you wouldn’t be the first?” 

Something not unlike guilt flashes across Stark’s face. Loki raises an eyebrow. 

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he chides, voice remarkably stable, remarkably composed. “Well? Have you decided? What else would you like to blame me for? Or do you not know who it is _you_ seem to have angered, since I doubt that you simply walked in here for the pleasure of it. It’s cozy, I’ll admit, but you’d doubtless tire of the company.”

“Enough, Loki!” And Stark is pacing again, whelming agitation and inexplicable _fear_ winding ever tighter, like the coils of a serpent. “Help me find a way out of here.”

“There is no way out of here.”

“There has to be,” Stark says, almost to himself. He cranes his neck, looks at the hole at the top of the cave. 

“Would you like me to give you a boost?” 

“I said, shut up!”

Loki ignores him. 

“Why is it so important that you get out of here now?”

Stark looks at him as if he is daft. 

“It’s the full moon tonight.”

“Is it?” Loki says mildly. “Cloudy or clear? Is there a chance of rain?” Before Stark can start yelling at him again — and he certainly would have, worked up and roiling as he is, and oh, but it would have been fun, too, if his fear wasn’t seeping into Loki as well — he adds, sardonically, “Surely you must realize that your Midgardian lunar cycles mean nothing to me.” 

The anger disappears in a flash. Stark looks kicked, and he shuts his eyes for a long moment, lips pressed together too tightly. 

“How can you possibly not know?” he says quietly, before looking once again as though he’d rather like to break something. “What I am?” 

Loki is silent, for once, eyes flicking rapidly over Stark’s face. Oh. _Oh_. Now he does see. Stark was never afraid _of_ Loki. 

“And what is that?” Loki asks, wariness setting his shoulders tight against the cave wall. 

For a moment, there’s something in Stark’s stare, something colder than anger, less desperate than fear, but just as intense, just as sharp. He takes a step forward, eyes too wide, before he stiffens and sucks in a breath. He looks away, crossing to the other side of the cave with his back to Loki yet again. 

“A werewolf.” 

Barely as strong as a breath, and Loki has to strain to hear it. For all the loathing Stark spits the word with, Loki does not understand. 

“I’m afraid-“ he starts to say after a pause, and Stark turns around again, looking triumphant, like Loki had said the one thing he expected. But there’s a keenness there once again, something that makes Loki’s heart beat faster than it should. _Dangerous_, his mind screams. “- I don’t know what that is.”

Stark doesn’t answer. Or, he does, but it is his turn to be silent. 

Loki follows his gaze, turned to rove over the pile of bones meaningfully. 

“Yours?”

Stark doesn’t seem to shake loose that haunted quality, eyes still locked over the broken bits and pieces of once-living beings, the only parts that had been met with mercy instead of teeth. 

He walks to the skull, and reaches a hand out toward it, like he means to pick it up. But he stops short, and nudges it with his toe instead.

“No. Not me. But another like me.”

He brings his head up, and looks at Loki. He says nothing else, but Loki knows it anyway. Had known the whole time, truthfully, even if he hadn’t known where Stark fit in. But as for Loki’s part... he looks at the skull again, and tries not to shudder. 

“What happens at the full moon?”

And ah, funny, how they are simply _talking_ now, all the games, the sneering, the anger locked behind the fear that shrouds them like mist over a field. 

“That’s when I transform.”

Loki laughs. 

“_You?_” he exclaims, grinning and incredulous. “A mindless beast, a _monster?_”

“It’s not funny!”

“It certainly is not,” he hisses, smile like a knife’s edge, like wormwood, sharp and bitter and poisonous. 

But it is fitting, so terribly fitting that he wonders, after all, if whoever had put him here in this cave _knew_. How reviled he must be, for what he is. Jotunn. Creature. Savage. Revenge. 

Ah, but then, it is turnabout, is it not? That Loki had once been moved like a game piece against Stark, had come a hair’s breadth from killing the man. And now here he is on the other side, this second and final act on the stage they’ve been placed on. 

Death at last. A nightmare given form and breath, the very thing that plagued him. Fitting. A beast for a beast. 

And the scrape of air in his lungs grows faster, his body cold all over, like he has plunged headlong into an ice river. 

“Nothing to say now?” 

Stark eyes him intently, for a moment almost _pleased_. But it passes, and he moves toward Loki. 

“Don’t come near me.”

Surprisingly, Stark stops, takes a step back. He doesn’t mock Loki for the feeble way the words came out. 

Loki stands, as sudden a motion as he is capable of making, and, ignoring the way his sight goes black, ignoring the dizzying rush in his head, his body’s impuissance, he makes his way to the mouth of the cave. 

It is sealed, just as Stark had said, some slab of stone slated across the opening, blocking out light and air almost entirely. Almost. 

There’s a coolness around the seam on the right, a trickle of air just below Loki’s chin. He rests his hands against the stone lid, thinking. 

The guards would not have stuck around longer than needed. Once Stark was sealed inside, they would have fled, the vile cowards, only returning in the morning to gloat over Loki’s remains and the red stain of blood around Stark’s lips. How many had there been? Two? Three? More? How many strong men did it take to move the slab? Loki is so weak like this, but Stark holds his strength yet. 

Loki leans against the stone, teeth gnashing together with the effort, palms flat and _pushing_. His bare feet grind into the dirt, and his shoulder burns. He pants, eyes shut and face against the cold rock, and tries again. And again. 

Stark comes up beside him, a better man than Loki, with no biting retort on his tongue, and shoves at the slab with all his might. The rock doesn’t move so much as an inch. 

Loki has to fight to breathe. The strain, the restlessness, the pain all at once. He can’t quite manage it. 

“There really is no way out.”

And what good were lies when the truth was this damning? 

_No way out._

Loki had known, of course. He’d said it before. But hope was such a dangerous thing, a trap to fall into when fear was at one’s heels. 

Loki is going to die. He is going to _die_. 

And then Stark speaks. 

“There...” he begins, voice as soft as Loki’s own, as wretched. “There might be another way.” Loki’s head jerks up, feeling that inane _hope_ light a blaze in his chest once more. Starks eyes meet his, and douse it. “But you’re not going to like it.”

Loki waits. Stark gathers himself together. 

“There’s a legend.” He speaks in a halting manner, hesitant and miserable. “Old wives tales, as far as I know, nothing really proven, not that I know how you’d set about proving it, because that would be-“ He shakes his head as if to clear it. “Never mind. The point is-“ he takes a breath. “A werewolf will not harm its mate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ending is a little weird, but this was really the best place to cut the chapter. Hopefully won’t have to wait toooo long for the next bit 😋


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and gentlemen, the captain would like you to be aware that this chapter contains (circumstantially) dubious consent of the physical AND emotional varieties. If you do not wish to engage in this type of material, please allow me to direct your attention to the exits located at the front and rear of the plane, as well over each wing. We remind you that this is a non-smoking flight, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask one of our flight attendants. Thank you for reading. We wish you all a safe and enjoyable flight!

The ensuing silence is heavy with tension. Stark doesn’t look at him while he waits for Loki to figure that out, not that it isn’t obvious anyway. 

“Oh, is that all?” Loki manages through the sudden strangled feeling in his throat. 

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the implication. 

Mate. 

Oh, it is all too clear. Stark behind him, bending him over, making him _ergi_-

“Loki?” Stark asks, sounding _concerned_. 

“No.”

“No? What do you-“

“No!”

“Loki.”

Loki paces, feeling numb, scarcely noticing the way his fingers tremble, but so _aware_ of it all the same. 

He ignores Stark, and slumps back down in his corner, the cold indifference of the cave neither propitious nor detrimental, but consistent, at least. 

“Loki.”

“I said no!”

“You don’t mean that!”

“Oh?” says Loki in a dark and deadly whisper. “You would presume to know what I do or do not mean?”

“This is your one chance to not die.” Oh, but he is so earnest, so certain. 

Loki lifts his head, an eyebrow raised delicately, and stares. 

“Maybe I would prefer to die.”

Stark flinches. Like Loki has hit him. Like it hurts. He takes a trembling breath, and then another. 

“Why would you...” he begins, but he doesn’t finish. The words melt away like dew in the sun’s scorch. 

“Do you take me for a fool?”

And Stark won’t let up that wounded expression, and Loki pretends it doesn’t burn him. He scoffs. 

“Or perhaps you mistake me for some sort of placid harlot that you can mount at will and-“

“Jesus_ fuck_, Loki!” Stark chokes out, unmistakably appalled. “You think _that’s_ what this is?”

“Are you about to tell me it’s not? I still have my pride, Stark.” And his eyes dare the man to disagree, to comment on the pathetic condition Loki has found himself in. The weakness, the squalor, the _unmanliness_. The bluff. 

Stark opens his mouth, but he merely blinks and turns away, leaving Loki with a last glance at the bitterness in his face, something desolate and weary not hidden quickly enough. 

“Do you know what happens if I don’t?” he says eventually. “Don’t kill you? If you don’t die?”

Loki tips his head, listening. It is necessity and not curiosity that stays his tongue, that insistent tinge of urgency that coats Starks tone like a signal fire, a warning unmistakable. 

Stark says nothing for a long while. Maybe waiting for Loki to interject, to find a tiny crack to dig his words into, or maybe he is indurating himself to speak his own words, the truth of them unshakable and fatal. 

There’s a soft rustle of fabric, and Loki realizes that Stark is undoing the buttons of his shirt, too hurried to be methodical, too furious. Loki watches him, bemused, until he has the top half undone, and jerks the collar of it down over his shoulder, baring the skin beneath. 

Or what is left of it, at least. Silver scar tissue is spread like a web, bigger than Loki’s hand outstretched, trailing down his back and beneath the shirt. The area is pitted in an unmistakable arc, mangled from wounds too deep to heal correctly. 

Silence fills the space with things that needn’t be said aloud, nothing extant save Loki’s rolling thoughts and their echoing certainty. There are things worse than death. And Loki _knows _about being a monster. 

And yet. It is one scar. One scar and not a dozen lining his flesh, a chance escape from something that should have killed him. Loki... Loki had never been so fortuitous. 

What was there to make the beast _stop_ once it had a taste? What would hold it back from its savage delight, subdue its indomitable blood-urge, temper the hunger that never could be truly appeased? 

There was no getting out of the cave. And there was nothing within besides Loki, no distraction, no alternative. It was by design. Fate, the Norns, whatever higher power there may or may not be. The execrable guards that had put Loki and Stark here to begin with. 

Loki had never been meant to live. 

And Stark had not been meant to die. 

Stark waits. Loki says nothing. He avoids Stark’s stare when it is turned on him once more, a petty child too stubborn for his own good. 

“Why are you being so difficult?” Stark all but screams at him. 

“_I _am being difficult?” Loki shouts back, matching him. “For wanting to die with the smallest bit of honor?” 

“Honor?” Stark starts to say. “What are you-“ But Loki doesn’t let him have the chance. 

“Maybe for you this is easy!” He spits out the words like a mouthful of acid. “_I _am not the one asking _you _to spread your legs and be unmanned_._“ 

Stark’s mouth drops open, but not in the shock and disgust Loki might have expected. Rather, he seems like he doesn’t quite know what to make of what Loki has said, the entailment of it lost on him. He looks long and hard at Loki, like he just doesn’t understand. 

“What’s dishonorable about that?”

“I wouldn’t expect a _Midgardian_ to comprehend it.” 

For all the malice he pours into his voice, he is shaky on the inside, anxiousness that clings tight filling all the hollow spaces. 

“Look,” says Stark, weary of patience. “If it would work the other way around, I’d let _you_ fuck _me_, but I can’t say that it would, and I can’t risk it. The wolf... the wolf has to make its claim, has to...” He cringes, but forces the word out anyway. “Dominate.”

Inside his chest, Loki’s heart pounds a steady, frantic rhythm. The sense of dread that’s been creeping like frost across his nerves now freezes solid, makes him tense against the need to shiver. He wonders, with a numbing thrill, if Stark can sense his fear, can smell it somehow. 

Stark waits. 

Loki doesn’t answer. 

***

The night advances. The moon is well into its zenithal climb, precious minutes lost to a stretch of time in unbroken silence. An hour. Maybe two. 

It’s dark in the cave, nearly too dark to see anything, the vestiges of twilight gathered in an argent puddle on the ground. Loki stares at it, eyes unmoving and thoughts wheeling like crows over carrion, around and around, a circle with death at its center.

Something shifts beside him, and Loki has a second to freeze, a second to realize it is only Stark, and a second to wonder, before arms wrap around his shoulders, hands everywhere, sliding along his chest and into his hair and tilting his head to the side, and a warm, wet mouth is on his neck. 

For a moment, he pauses, still as a lake in winter, waiting, breath held, like he is prey, his bare throat exposed against the jaws of a killer. 

Then he shoves Stark with all his might, inconsiderable though it may be, and gasps in pain as the movement jerks his shoulder.

“_Get off me!_”

Fortunately, it is enough to send Stark crashing to the ground, sprawled inelegantly on his ass and the heels of his hands, wincing as the earth scrapes his palms. He shakes it off, and is back up in an instant. 

“Loki, god damn it!” he cries. “Damn _you!_ You know, I don’t really want to be doing this either! But I- I can’t be a murder! You don’t understand-“

“So you would rather be a _rapist?_” Loki spits, sick at the thought of what would happen come moonrise in earnest, those teeth ripping scraps of meat from his body until all that was left of him was bones, more bones, left to dry to dust in the back of a cave somewhere, forgotten by all except the next _victims_. That scares him, truly scares him, much more than anything Stark could do to him as a man. 

“I’m failing to see many other options here!” Stark’s breathing, loud all of a sudden, is too quick, his voice awash with despair. “I’m sorry, Loki, but please don’t, please don’t make me kill you,” he begs, sounding every bit as stricken as Loki feels. 

And Loki realizes, shaken, how scared Stark truly is as well. Scared of everything Loki is afraid of, scared of the bones, of the taste of blood on his lips. 

“I believe I told you _no_ already,” says Loki, as swift as meltwater, as cold. Merciless. But he has to know. “Do you need me to tell you again?”

“I _need_ you to be reasonable!”

“Oh?” He sneers, displaying his teeth. “I’m sure _I_ get to determine what is _reasonable_.”

But he _knows_ that he is not, not being _reasonable_. Cornered creatures rarely were. 

Something in Stark crumples. He sits, hunched in the dirt, and buries his face in his hands with a sob. 

“If, if it comes to that, I won’t,” he says to his hands, so soft and muffled it is hard to understand. He swallows. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t live with myself if I...” he trails off, but doesn’t lift his head, and the set of his shoulders tells of steely and anguished determination. “Do you really want to die?” 

Loki... Loki _doesn’t_. He’d wanted to die before. On the Bifrost. When he was in Thanos’ hold, when he’d been tormented to his _breaking point_ and beyond, when it would have been a mercy. In the aftermath, when he’d deserved it. 

But now...

“No,” Loki admits into the darkness, tucking his knees closer to his chest, vulnerable as truth always made him feel. “Not like this.”

Stark turns to him, brimming with some wildfire idea. 

“Kill me,” he says. 

“What?” 

The horror of the thought catches up with him. 

“Kill me.”

“I’m not- I’m not going to kill you!” 

His chest aches with the need to breathe, to cry, but his lungs won’t move. 

“Why not? Wouldn’t that be more _honorable?_”

It’s more than just a challenge, more than spite severely requited. Desperation. It is a plea. 

“I _need_ you to say yes. Don’t make me into something I don’t want to be.”

Something Loki doesn’t want to be either. Murderer. Again. _Monster_. 

“I-“ Loki tries, but he can’t say the words.

“Loki?”

He can just see enough of Stark’s face to know the man is looking at him.

He wants to laugh. Oh how he wants to _laugh!_ It is not funny in the slightest.

A choice. He is being offered a _choice_. But truthfully, there is no choice at all.

Loki shuts his eyes, like it will make the world disappear somehow, like it will make him suddenly _brave_.

He nods.

He knows Stark sees, know because after a moment, he hears him move to his feet, hears the way his shirt whispers as he finishes undoing the buttons and lets it drop to the ground, hears the unmistakable _zip_ as he unfastens his pants. He opens his eyes.

As Stark steps out of the last of his clothing and turns to him, Loki is suddenly glad of the darkness. He hesitates still, the dirt-crusted, stained clothes the only barrier his has left.

He makes himself peel them off anyway, until he is standing as well, naked and trepidant. And he waits, trying not to shiver, for Stark to tell him to turn around, to bend over, to- 

“Lie down,” he says quietly, a suggestion more than a demand.

Loki, not knowing what else to do, settles back against the hard ground, ignoring the sharp little stones that dig into his skin. He raises his eyes to the roof of the stone mouth, mostly to avoid looking at Stark as he lowers himself as well.

A cold hand touches his ankle, and he startles, but to his credit, he doesn’t flinch physically, doesn’t betray the soft thrum of mortification that beats like blood in his veins.

He takes the hint. Shifts his legs apart, knees bent. The patch of grey where the eye of the cave meets the night sky is hazy and dim.

Stark shuffles between his thighs, crouching unbearably close to Loki’s bare groin. He spits, twice, into his own hand. There’s a slick, fleshy sound as he reaches between his own legs and spreads the saliva over his cock. It takes a long time, longer than necessary, and Loki realizes that Stark is nearly as _uneager_ as he is himself.

“Are you ready?” He says eventually, sounding like the words want to stick to his tongue.

_No_.

“Yes.”

Stark gives a jerky nod, and leans forward until his body nearly covers Loki’s own, scarcely touching. Then the thick, blunt head of his cock brushes against Loki’s rim, and Loki tenses, not quite stifling a sharp breath.

He tries to relax as it begins sliding into him — gradual, dragging, stretching — but the significance of it, the _wrongness_, lodges like a rock in his throat, pressing down, aching under the weight of it. 

After a long, slow, painful minute, Stark’s hips meet Loki’s, and after a pause, letting Loki _get used to_ the feeling, the fullness, the compunction, he begins to thrust gently. 

Loki gulps, an acute jolt of pain making him lift his head. 

For a moment, his eyes meet Stark’s, so sharply focused yet blown wide and dark, unfathomable, so full of, of something Loki can not name; in that instant, Loki _wants, _and for so small a thing.

A kiss. 

Just a kiss. 

He _wants_, so desperately, to kiss him, _wants_ the simple intimacy of it like he won’t breathe again until he has it, like he will die if he does not kiss this man. 

Stark must have been thinking the same, for the next moment finds him leaning forward, face dangerously near to Loki’s own, and Loki knows that he doesn’t actually want to kiss him, knows that whatever madness has taken hold is not his own volition, and he, panicking, turns his face aside, away from the thing he wants most. Denying himself. Denying Stark.

Stark’s mouth lands against his cheek instead, changing from a proper kiss to a simple brush of lips, pressed against his skin for a long, excruciating moment. Loki feels the slight tremble of them, the pain of loss so potent it echoes into a physical feeling, its reciprocal in Loki’s chest.

The man begins thrusting into him again, and Loki groans, grimacing through the discomfort of his body and the humiliation of his mind, of letting himself be taken. Used. Claimed. Shameful. He shouldn’t have agreed, shouldn’t have let himself be so pathetic and cowardly that he couldn’t just die-

Stark changes his angle, and, despite himself, Loki gasps, mingled revulsion and pleasure, the soft sound unduly loud, and unequivocally damning. 

Shouldn’t have let himself enjoy his own degradation. Dominated, indeed. And here he is, submitting to it like a mare in heat, panting like a mongrel, scared and aroused and defiled. 

He feels filthy, and it’s not the dirt. 

It’s not the dirt. 

Stark, sensing his distress, slows, more focused on Loki than on his movements, and it’s sweet, maybe, and Loki can’t begrudge him that even if he really, really wants to, but they _don't have the time for this_. The only thing that could make this worse is if Loki died anyway, after trading his body — his honor, his pride, the very last scrap of himself he had been clinging to — for his life, and Stark killed him anyway. 

“Move, damn you,” Loki hisses, fighting the urge to move his own hips, because he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t stoop that low. 

Stark does move, and Loki whimpers, because it hurts, and he turns his face into the dirt, the coldness of it unforgiving and nothing at all like silken sheets. He has the halfway there and wholly mad thought of himself like some scared young virgin, bedded for the first time, and this... this is not how anyone would want that to happen. Fucked frantically, on the floor of a cave, with no tender gestures or even the simple amenity of a proper mattress, with the ultimatum of do it or die. 

A sob wells up, filling the emptiness in his chest, the soul-deep ache of something missing, something that hadn't even mattered moments ago. 

“Loki,” Stark says, gentle as candlelight, and cups Loki’s cheek to turn his face to look at him, earnest and miserable, stroking a calloused thumb so softly over his cheek. “It’s alright. Relax, I don’t- I don’t want to hurt you.”

And Loki, Loki does not lean into it. He doesn’t. But it doesn’t matter if it hurts — because it _does_ — doesn’t matter-

“I’m not about to break,” he snarls, even though it comes out more weakly than he’d like, tempered as it is by the way he so conspicuously cannot bring himself to pull away from Stark’s hand. The comfort of it, so small, but so potent, makes his eyes threaten tears, the dangerously hot prickle at the corners unconvincingly covered by his ire. 

Stark lets go, and Loki feels the absence of that hand like a brand across his cheek, and that hurts as well, and it scares him, because he should not be feeling like that, should not want so strongly for a man he felt no affection and only tenuous commiseration for only moments before. Why? Why is he so desperate for any trace of kindness that he’d take it even from Stark, even when the man is buried hilt deep in his body and fucking him, despite neither of them wanting it. 

“Just hurry up and finish.” Let it be over, he does not say, but he does not have to. He’s sure Stark hears it anyway. 

The man’s head drops to Loki’s shoulder and stills, even as his hips move again and again, like he is bracing himself, fighting against some volatile emotion and anchoring his resolve. 

And Loki, almost without permission, finds his hand reaching up to touch Stark’s hair. Comfort, solidarity, forgiveness, he does not know. Permission, perhaps. 

His rhythm picks up, and Loki can tell he is, despite it all, getting close to his release. It is a mercy. He’ll only have to endure this for a few more minutes. And he wants to laugh at that thought, that this is something he has to _endure_, despite the occasional electrifying shivers of pleasure that run through his body, despite the fact that Stark is _trying_ to be decent to him.

It is not enough, could not be so, but Loki... Loki appreciates it even as he detests it. Compassion. Foolish, really. But... sweet. Loki hadn’t found anyone who thought he deserved it in a long time indeed. 

Stark twists his head, soft hair whispering against Loki’s collarbones, and without a warning, he sinks his teeth into Loki’s neck. 

Loki screams. Fear, pain, pleasure. He isn’t sure which, but Stark jerks his hips a final time, teeth clamped tightly against Loki’s skin, and spills inside him. And Loki feels _that_ maybe even more intensely than the teeth, heat filling him and making bile rise in his throat. Marked. Claimed. 

Stark’s head falls away and, immediately, Loki’s hand comes up to the wound, horrified to find it wet and throbbing. He pulls his fingers away, panting as he tries to find some light, and shuddery with relief when they glisten, but aren’t dark. No blood. Stark hasn’t bitten him hard enough to maim. Just to arrogate. His _mate_. 

Stark pants heavily, breath hot against his chest and strikingly cool against his bite mark. 

It’s clear he is exhausted, his arms trembling on either side of Loki, cheek leant against his shoulder, eyes shut, but he still reaches a hand between them to stroke at Loki’s own cock, only half hard — and gods, as if it wasn’t humiliating enough, part of him had to go and enjoy it. 

Loki knocks his hand away, disgusted by his own hitching breath, responding to the warmth against his sensitive skin, the touch, despite all odds, sending a low ember of pleasure through his body. He grits his teeth, suddenly glad that Stark isn’t watching his face right now. 

“Let’s just be done with it,” he says softly, feeling exhausted himself, worn and weary from fear, from shame, from long nights spent agonizing over his fate only to resort to _this_ to avoid it. 

The heaviness of Stark’s body over his own is only a slight comfort — an uneven counterweight to the distress it brings. For better or for worse, he is not alone now, and the face of everything he had been dreading is familiar, at least. Most others wouldn’t have done as much to save Loki from such a sickening lot. Some would even have gone to considerable lengths to ensure Loki felt every one of those teeth, drenched in the scent of his own blood and choking on his screams until pain was the last and only thing he knew. 

Stark is warm, and while he had done what he had for his own selfish reasons, to avoid his own guilt and revulsion, it was... beneficial to Loki. He didn’t want to die, didn’t want his last breath to be a broken and craven whimper, killed without contrition by a mindless beast, with no chance to honor himself in a fair fight. 

For a moment, Loki just breathes, the scent of sweat and dirt and semen filling his lungs, and closes his eyes. He feels filthy. Used. _Grateful_. So _tired_. 

Stark pries himself off of Loki, more of a stumbling crawl than anything, like he is too weak to hold himself up, and collapses only a short distance away, unmoving. Loki can hear his breathing, though. 

Stark picks his head up, and for a moment he looks at Loki, the trace of moonlight catching against his eyes in wavering silver light. Then he shudders, breath rapidly quickening into gasps of what sound like pain, broken with what is unmistakably a growl. 

Loki’s skin prickles all up the back of his neck. A scant arms length away, and Stark is turning into a ravenous beast before his eyes. 

Stark tries to crawl, tries to lean up on his arms and knees, but new spasms wrack him, and he doubles over, shaking and grunting, fingers scratching through the dirt for purchase not found, and then it is his turn to scream, a piercing wail that echoes around the stone walls, fills Loki’s ears and swells in his bones, resonant and terrible. 

And he does not _stop_. For long moments, that is all there is, the screaming, the thrashing, the agony so viscid in the air, Loki can feel it choking him. 

And then there is silence, ringing with the absence of even the faintest whimper. For one awful moment, Loki is sure Stark is dead, and he’s not certain if he’s appalled more by the relief he feels, or by the anguish that clutches his heart in a too-tight grasp. 

Then he hears scrabbling, the soft susurration of fur, and when he looks up, there’s a dark shape looming toward him. 

Then Stark, or rather, the beast that was Stark, once, steps into the moonlight, and the face of a wolf stares back at Loki. 

A wolf.

Just a wolf.

The creature tips its head, watching Loki, eyes burnished and inscrutable, and so much more permeating than Stark’s had ever been. 

Loki breathes, in and out, forcing his breath to slow down, fighting to suppress the panic.

He realizes, too late, that he has been staring, a threat he had not meant to make, nor one he could follow through with. 

The wolf steps closer, soundless as a cloud, until its muzzle is inches from Loki’s face, and he — still trapped against the wall, still stuck in the cave with the huge body of the wolf before him, still confined my his mortal weakness — cannot fight the animal, cannot hope to win, and, without meaning to at all, Loki tips his chin back, and bares his throat.

_Stupid_, he thinks, as the wolf moves ever closer, the wet brush of its nose and the scrape of coarse fur over his throat, _stupid_, after all this, that he would invite his death anyway, would, at the first chance he’d been offered, submit himself to the very teeth he feared, without lifting a finger in his defense. 

But the wolf does not bite him. 

It sniffs, hot, shuddery breath and a whiskery tickle against his neck. And then there’s a warm tongue lapping the bite mark, and Loki stifles a hiss — it hurts, damn it, still tender and raw.

When the wolf pulls back, it’s gazing at Loki curiously. Then it crouches low over its forepaws, hindquarters high in the air and tail wagging, looking for all the world like one of Asgard’s hounds asking to _play_.

Loki laughs. It is not a nice sound, ragged and clipped as it is, borne of incredulity and not humor.

Stark’s wolf gives something like a bark — but it is _not_ a bark, because it is a wolf, and not a pup — and runs a short distance, and repeats the crouch and tail wagging, looking at Loki expectantly. But Loki does not want to play. Even if he did, he doubts that he’d be able to stand well enough to do so, so weak is he currently. 

The wolf _whines_. 

Loki wants to laugh again, but he can feel the claws of madness catching in his throat, and swallows it down before it is loose to consume him. This is what he feared? This? This is no scarier than a cub, and it is _dancing_ for him.

When Loki doesn’t engage Stark’s wolf in a game of chase, the creature approaches him again, and this time, Loki doesn’t freeze, doesn’t plead for his own short death, doesn’t even feel afraid.

The wolf shoves its nose against Loki’s cheek, not hard enough to hurt, but with a suddenness that startles him regardless.

Then he does feel teeth, but not sharp ones. Little nibbles against his cheeks and lips, and he remembers that he is not this wolf’s prey, but its mate.

The wolf continues to groom him, nuzzling his face and jaw affectionately and pressing Loki further against the wall with its weight and enthusiasm, a flurry of fur and tongue and warm, wiggling wolf.

Loki, of course, does not lick back. He is no animal, no wolf of his own, nor does he want to be anyone’s mate, Stark, the wolf, or otherwise. He wants to shove the beast away, wants to put his clothes back on and forget this ever happened, wants to get out of this wretched cave before he really does want to die.

The wolf seems confused. Sad even. And why wouldn’t it? Loki thinks with a flicker of something dangerously close to pity. It had a mate, and Loki was rejecting it, refusing to indulge it in its-

Love.

_Love_.

Could wolves even feel love?

But of course they could. Why wouldn’t they? They were never so unlike men or Asgardians, after all.

But men and Asgardians had never loved Loki. The wolf was as foolish as Stark.

Stark.

Stark had... but he couldn’t... that wasn’t...

And yet, wasn't it?

It is hard to deny when Loki feels the truth of it settle like a feather in his own heart.

Love.

Just because it shouldn’t have been possible doesn’t mean that it is not.

But the feather is heavy and fulgent as a forger’s iron, and it burns. Oh how it burns.

He is furious. He should have killed Stark while he had the chance, should have finished what he’d started in New York, his hand around the man’s neck, throttling the life from him. And yet. Oh, and yet. The anger fades to ashes, because that thought hurts even worse. Stark dying. _His_ mate. Bonded. Love.

He looks at the wolf. It looks back at him, wise and dumb in equal measure, tame for the moment, but there is hunger within, wolf eyes, so different to a man’s, and so much like Stark’s had been. Dangerous. Subdued because Loki belonges to it

But the wolf loves him. 

How simple. How comforting. How easy. Because to Loki, it is merely a wolf.

How fitting, that he prefers the beast after all. 


End file.
